


Morning People

by thebigbengal



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, a teensy bit of angst, but fluff for the most part, mention of vomiting, road trip au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 19:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebigbengal/pseuds/thebigbengal
Summary: Just another typical morning for Dale and Laura...





	Morning People

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Motherless Child I am with Thee, Thou were Never Alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284432) by [sal_paradise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_paradise/pseuds/sal_paradise). 



> I have no idea why it took me this long to make an actual Road Trip fic for these two, but here it is!
> 
> Edit: Stupid me forgot to credit the inspiration for this: sal_paradise and their lovely little road trip fic!

Laura thought it was a good thing she was already awake, and not planning on going back to sleep anytime soon. Dale was getting chatty, mumbling dialogue from childhood memories that would bring a little smile to Laura’s face. If things turned for the bitter and unpleasant, she’d call him out from the dream with a gentle nudge, but for now, she lets him wander.

 _The man needs as much sleep as he can get._ She says to herself. 

Dale’s jabbering falls and rises in volume, and Laura listens in. A dream of his mother, again. He doesn’t speak much of her, but he doesn’t need to for the point to get across. Laura's own mother came into memory, and she hastily shakes it off. She didn’t need to start crying at this early an hour and maybe give Dale something else to worry over when he wakes up. Plenty of times before she's found herself resting in his lap, freed from some nightmare of her old life, and looking up into remorseful, tired eyes that begged for her forgiveness, and then the new nightmare would seep in. Then, she'd role over and shut it all out, while Dale let it bombard him with the blunt force of bullets. Things haven't gotten any less difficult since that, but they now had four strong legs to withstand it, rather than only two.

The moon was a bright little crescent in Laura's view, and the soft orange and red gradient peaked over the horizon of trees and billboards. She hopped to her feet and pulled out a cigarette packet, and began banging it against her palm, when she decided against it and placed it back into the bag pocket. It might have been better to throw them away but, “baby steps,” as the saying goes. Laura felt the room beginning to swirl and quickly made her way to the door.

The motel was like any other they’d stayed at, literally and figuratively. They all changed with the slightest blink; decor, wallpaper, furnishings, and placement, but once you’ve seen one cheap motel room, you’ve seen them all. Landscapes and weather shifted at the drop of a hat. A calm, sunny evening could turn heel into a chaotic storm the very next morning, and a frigid, dreary afternoon might peter out into fluffy snowfall come sun rise. Should they be lucky to catch a lovely glimpse of a world a little closer to home, they’ll bask as long as they can and savor that hope like sweet nectar, then turn away for a moment, and look back to find it ripped out of them. It’s a disappointment, of course, but it’s expected.

The sun reared its head and illuminated the new landscape in all its unimpressive glory. Tall pines, not the majestic furs that fan out on all sides and stand with pride, but the scrawny sticks that only sprout needle leaves near the very top, and look like they could topple over at the slightest touch. Dead centipede grass crept over uneven asphalt. Rusted trailer homes, abandoned wood-plank houses that would invite poltergeists from all corners of the globe, and a shady gas station with two pumps and a convenience store likely crawling with every STD known to man.

“Gorgeous.” Laura snarked, cracking open a bottled sweet tea. _It’s no Martha’s Vineyard, but we’ve woken up to worse._ Though, there was plenty of time left in the day to prove her wrong.

Small lengths of clouds burned pink and violet, and the sun was a red, hot cherry sitting atop the horizon line; still bright, but not bright enough to force Laura to turn away. She thought of how often she’d find her mother and father gazing out the living room window in the early mornings, old men standing outside of diners and puffing their cigars, looking to the East, or the more recent images of Dale, planted in the threshold of the swung-open door, letting the sun’s rays hit him with welcome arms. Laura was never a morning person, but this was something of incentive for not sleeping in till noon. It was as if the radiation recharged each cell just a little bit to relieve the weight on her neck and aching back.

Laura blinked and saw figures of years past, two young girls in their school clothes and chasing each other down dirt roads, laughing the whole way. She rolled her head back, shutting her eyes, and pictured the golden sunlit patterns her drapes and blinds would create on her bedroom floor. The first chirps of finches and mockingbirds echoed out from the tree tops, and morphed into a calming, harmonious tune.

She felt almost at peace for a moment, until the paper thin motel walls alerted her back inside, where her companion lie moaning and drenched in sweat, clawing at the bed sheets with sheer desperation. Taking his hands and brushing wet hair out of his cold and clammy face, Laura leans forward and whispers something that reels him back in, and gazing up at the ceiling before falling onto her comforting presence. His breathing and heart slow to a steady rhythm, and he squeezes her hands tight. She coos to him in a sing-song voice, “There, you’re alright. You’re alright.”

Dale pulls his hand from hers to cup her cheek. He smiles, contentment and security shining through his eyes. His words come out horse and light, but very much there. "Hello."

"Hi," Laura replies, "Well, aren't you a real Sleeping Beauty?"

Dale chuckles and delicately caresses Laura's features, as if seeing them for the first time after a long journey. She moves her head against his hand, the warmth rising back into his skin. Laura could tell he was awfully relieved to see her.

The sweet comfort was put on pause by the dream Dale had escaped from. There was a strain in his voice as he uttered the sentence, “I saw Diane.” 

A name Laura hadn’t heard from him in awhile now, and even though it held no personal meaning, her heart still sunk all the same. “Your friend?”

“I saw her. And she was  _her._ Not ‘Linda,’ or ‘Marissa,’ or ‘Sandy.’ But she didn’t look at me like I was myself. To her, I was Richard, or…” He stopped with the fear that if he so much as mentioned _him_ , it might bring him forth. Laura rested on his chest, arms folded, and gently pressing down. The tension in Dale’s torso dissolved and he closed his eyes. “And then I see her, and I am me, but she is ‘Linda,’ or ‘Marissa,’ or ‘Sandy,’ and I can’t take it. She vanished as someone else.” He let the musty air coat him. He sunk further into the bed, placid as gelatin.

Laura called him back with a kiss on the forehead before he sunk too deep, and he responds with a peck on her chin. She couldn’t promise Diane would return. God knows she couldn’t. Laura had seen too many Donnas, James’, Bobbys, Ronettes, Audreys, Johnnys, Maddys, Sarahs and Lelands to understand where one ends and one begins anymore, who they were and who she was to them long, long ago. They blended into crowds, faces distorted under film grain, and glancing straight through her like glass while she quakes in her shoes. Some encounters would send her retreating to a backroom or behind a wall, where she’ll bury her face in her jacket and tire herself out crying. She wouldn’t always be alone, as Dale follows behind, equally set off by the face of a woman taken from him too soon in life, or men he’d never gotten the chance to explore himself with. They’d take each other in their arms, and bury themselves away for as long as they needed before stumbling off and carrying on the best they could.

The room tumbled again, and they braced for a hard stop. It snapped back, the yellow table lamp now a muted green, the carpet turned blue and shaggy, and the sun just a tad lower in the sky than when Laura last saw it. Dale nudged Laura to the side, and lept out of bed to the bathroom. Laura couldn’t blame him. “You’re not gonna be in there for long, are you?” Dale’s dry heaves answered her loud and clear.


End file.
